RCC-1461 Tender for Family Hub Activities for Rutland County Council

The aims/objectives/service priorities of this contract are:

A 2021 needs analysis of Rutland families, focusing on the 0 – 5-year age range, found five of areas of focus:

• Supporting parental understanding of the 1001 critical days and how this will affect their child’s development and future happiness. Along with the crucial role parents play in this.
• Supporting parents to understand how parental mental health can impact children. Helping parents to understand how they can keep themselves and their children mentally healthy throughout childhood and into adolescence.
• Supporting parents to feel more comfortable to access help when their child needs it through an up-to-date working knowledge of the face-to-face and digital support available in Rutland.
• Supporting child development in particular speech, language and communication in the Early Years and children’ emotional health once they start school.
• Promoting parental capacity to understand children’s behaviour childhood and into adolescence at different ages and stages and helping them to develop effective strategies that enable children to express themselves in appropriate ways and to remove any barriers there may be to this as children mature.

Consistent practitioners across sessions for children aged 0 - 11 will enable more effective identification of individual needs. For example, the early identification and tracking of children with potential additional needs or older children with emotional difficulties, including anxiety or reluctance to attend school. Practitioners will also have the skills to identify when a family is having problems which may require support and will be able to signpost them to suitable community, voluntary or professional support and by this signposting will also contribute to the awareness of themes and potential areas of focus across all children aged 0 – 11, as described in responses to the 2023 Family Hub survey.

Early Years settings and primary schools are increasingly involved in supporting children’s wider needs through the Supporting Schools Partnership. Families can and do access this support when it is offered. The family hub is part of this network of services and works alongside other professionals to deliver expert support and messages around child development, parenting, physical and emotional health and more. Targeting areas of need, encouraging priority families to attend while providing universal services, we believe, is the best way to enable Rutland children and their families to flourish.

Priority families in Rutland include those with children supported by Social Care or Early Help, families who have children with SEND and Military families.

The Family Hub will provide:

• Quality assurance visits to three sessions quarterly.
• All equipment and consumable items for sessions.
• iPad and access to a Tapestry account for the purpose of tracking children under 5.
• Access to the Liquid Logic Groupwork module for recording activity with older children
• The Family Hub will take all bookings and provide promotional material for sessions.

Further information on the requirement and relevant performance standards are available within the Specification.

The anticipated contract commencement date is 1st October 2025.

The Council proposes to enter one contract for an initial period of 24 months with the preferred supplier, with an option to extend for a further period of 24 months on a 1 year + 1 year basis, making 48 months in total.

The budget for this contract is £55,000 per annum in its entirety (exclusive of VAT). Please Note: The Council reserves the right to reject any submissions that are over budget without further evaluation.

Suppliers are encouraged to search for the opportunity on East Mids Tender ProContract

portal, under DN764754. The deadline for receipt of tenders is 12 noon Friday 28th March 2025.